


Orientation & Mobility

by patrexes



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Domestic, Blind Character, Car Sex, Equally Blind Author, M/M, Multi, Size Kink, Trans Male Character, Unreliable Narrator, idiots to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-24 19:02:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20019472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patrexes/pseuds/patrexes
Summary: The first thing Gaius noticed was the cane.





	Orientation & Mobility

**Author's Note:**

> this fic was written almost entirely on my phone in a no service zone in rural british columbia and it is self-indulgence at its [finest](https://patrex.es/post/185467623260). no, i don’t take criticism.
> 
> fyi @readers who don’t know ffxiv, livia is gaius’ daughter and they are in canon incest, stay safe and all that jazz

The first thing Gaius noticed was the cane.

In retrospect, that seemed important—he didn’t go up to some boy alone in a bar and a third his age looking to get laid; hells, he hadn’t even been _thinking_ about sex. He’d just been sitting there, nursing his flat, off-brand cola and keeping an eye on Næl, whose manner only ever became more—well, _Næl_ —when she was drunk. Gaius found it charming, but, then, Gaius wasn’t a drunken thirty year old being soundly annihilated at billiards by a woman reciting poetry and losing a hundred gil in the process.

(Being Næl van Darnus’ designated driver was, if nothing else, always an _experience_.)

Næl was drinking something bright red through its tiny double-wide straw in the spare moments between neatly sinking every ball on the pool table, and the half-Elezen woman she was playing against was taking it damn well, laughing good-naturedly at Næl’s filigreed bow, the proud rap of her finger beside her third eye. “Cheating, innit?” but if there was heat in the words, it was the kind that would be finding them a room at the end of the night. And so Gaius let his attention stray, and he noticed the cane on the bar.

Despite the busy night, there was an empty seat to one side of the cane’s owner and two to the other. Gaius, thirty five years of parenting disabled children to his name, winced. He shot a glance to Næl, gesticulating through a fervent—but not _angry_ —conversation with her new friend, and figured the odds were low enough of a bar fight for now. He got up.

“Mind if I sit with you?”

The cane’s owner startled, beginning “Oh! My apologies—” and reaching for the cane. It was old enough it was more cream than white, reflective tape scratched and peeling up at the edges of each of the five body sections, a faded little charm—some kind of magickal carbuncle, Gaius thought—knotted into the black strap on the handle, and it was summarily placed behind its owner’s nine-keyed notetaker.

“It’s no problem,” said Gaius. “You’ve taken up hardly any space at all.” It was true. There was the notetaker (eight ilms wide), the cane behind it (six ilms long, folded as it was), and the single, near-empty glass of something clear and carbonated beside (three ilms). He set his own glass down heavy on the counter, took the single seat to leave the pair open. “I’m Gaius,” he said. Nodded towards the empty glass. “What were you drinking? I’ll get you another.”

His companion blinked at him, deep-set eyes a pale blue and the left out-turned. “Alphinaud,” came the introduction, an odd name to match the odd accent, and with no gender Gaius could confidently guess. Alphinaud offered Gaius a mild smile, the quirk of those full lips perhaps bemused. “I’m only having tonic water.”

Gaius had never seen an Elezen so small—not an adult, at least. The bar stool Alphinaud perched on had a lift on it made for Lalafell. If they weren’t in a bar, he might have thought Alphinaud twelve at best. More than height, the features seemed young, too—if Alphinaud had been drinking something with an alcohol content, Gaius still might have thought teenager with a fake ID. But no high schooler went to a bar to drink _tonic water._

“Concerned about malaria, are you, Alphinaud?” and he liked the feeling of the name in his mouth. He laughed lightly. “I can’t stand the taste myself, even sweetened as they make it in places like these—too long in the legions.”

“Mm.” The look on Alphinaud’s face was unreadable. “How long have you found yourself in Eorzea?”

“Long enough to raise two children in these lands,” Gaius said. He wasn’t certain how well Alphinaud could ascertain his age, particularly not in this dim lighting—best to offer something to approximate it by. “And yourself?” He waved over the bartender; nodded to both their glasses.

“Fourteen months to the day, in fact.” Alphinaud shifted, swinging both legs over the side of the stool’s bucket-seat lift so as to face Gaius properly. It hardly looked comfortable, sitting like that. Still, it afforded him a far better view of those youthful features, pretty and wry, as Alphinaud offered smiling, “My grandparents fled Eorzea upon your arrival.” The tone was mild interest, _here is a fun bit of trivia_. “They returned to the motherland as so many did to escape imperial rule, and here I find myself but scant epochs later, beholden to your laws and speaking your tongue.”

“You speak it well,” Gaius offered. “All the more impressive for that I am given to understand our tongue and the speech of Sharlayan are passing disparate indeed—ah, thank you,” he added, addressing the bartender. She placed new glasses on the counter before swiping away the old ones and the gil Gaius set beside them.

“I’ve a head for languages,” said Alphinaud, and—worrying none too gently at lower lip—continued, “and, I’m told, an agile tongue.”

Heat in the pit of his stomach, Gaius shot a glance to Næl, still taken up with her catch. Then, his voice low: “Agile enough to wield such a double-edged sword as those words?”

“Adroitly, sir,” said Alphinaud, “and sharper blades besides.” And that—the upward twitch of those full lips, the confident amusement sparkling in those pale eyes—that could be nothing but intentionally provocative.

“You’re forward,” Gaius replied, as evenly as he could hope to. Perhaps it came out closer to chiding.

(He had not been thinking of sex. Not at first. But now, the thought—this slight little thing licking at his cock, too small a mouth to take him properly and so messy instead with spit and pre smeared over kiss-swollen lips; Alphinaud in his lap, sinking down on him, the line of Gaius’ cock palpable beneath his fingers so easily spanning that narrow waist—)

The first hint of uncertainty clouded Alphinaud’s features, and still only for a moment. If Gaius hadn’t been staring, he’d likely not have caught it at all. “You have black,” a mild rebuke. As if for punctuation, Alphinaud took a sip of tonic water, then went on with a quirking, self-amused grin, “and there is but one handicap upon the board. Surely your moves were not so poorly thought as to leave you without liberties?”

“That I came with strategy at all is a bold assumption,” said Gaius. “Might a man but wish to speak?”

“He _might_ ,” came with good humor, and then, “but you didn’t start in with ‘what’s wrong with you?’ and that’s the only reason anyone ever strikes up a conversation.”

And there again, that pang of—something. Something like anger he had no real right to feel on behalf of a near-stranger.

“My daughter is blind.” When Marcus and Claudia were killed, his brother’s house had only taken Lucia, the younger of the two girls. Livia, who from birth had never felt pain, who at four had clawed out her eye for the gravel obstructing her vision, was deemed too difficult to care for, and so Gaius took on his friend’s daughter as his own. A pause. “All right,” Alphinaud admitted, “ _that’s_ the only _other_ reason. Well done.”

“That’s not—I meant only that I know how people can act.” And here he was, making such a mess of it he was just as bad. “I’ve no intention to overstep any boundaries. _Any_ boundaries,” Gaius added meaningfully, before letting his tone shift. “So saying, would you kick me if I said you have lovely eyes?”

It shocked a burst of laughter from Alphinaud, who pressed palm to mouth to stifle the sound and, giggling still, said, “You can have them if you like! They’re far more trouble than they’re worth.”

“I doubt they’d glow so brightly torn from their sockets.” Sitting to Alphinaud’s left, it was his good arm between them. He brought his hand up to rest upon a tiny knee, his fingertips reaching the hem of Alphinaud’s tunic even hiked up as it was by the angle Alphinaud sat in the lift.

“Oh,” Alphinaud breathed, wonder in that soft voice. The smooth pads of tiny, slender fingers ghosted over the back of his hand. “Your hands are so big.” Alphinaud, too, must have been imagining the press of Gaius’ fingers inside, the stretch almost too painful, too fast to bear. Alphinaud’s own hand, resting atop his, was so delicate. Tiny, blunt fingernails dragged at his raised veins.

“I have someone here,” Gaius started, “I’m meant to be the sober party for,” he didn’t quite finish before the aforementioned appeared between the two of them, her half-Elezen in tow.

“I,” said Næl, hand and voice upraised alike, “have been blessed this eve with an amenable conquest—ow,” she added mildly. It was in response to what seemed equally likely from the angle to have been a punch or a small knife betwixt her ribs. In either case, she went on, voice pitched too-loud by personality as much as alcohol, “And I am, in this instance, amenable likewise to the conquering. Best not inform His Radiance.”

“Best not,” said Gaius, burying the laughter in his voice as well he could. “Næl, this is Alphinaud. Alphinaud, my—” He hesitated.

“Friend?” Næl’s one-night stand offered, eyebrows raised. She was red-haired and grimy, and there was a fierceness about her stance, clear as day from her posture that she had checked a weapon at the door as Gaius and Næl both had, and that it was not small. She was nothing at all like Bradamante, and therefore the exact sort of girl Næl went after these days.

Gaius and Næl made simultaneous, equally noncommittal noises. He was relatively certain they didn’t hate each other, most of the time, which might have been as close as either came to a friendship. “Næl van Darnus,” he landed on. “Legatus of the VIIth Legion. And—?”

“Hilda,” said Hilda. “I’ve a room in walking distance, so here’s the dog let off his leash.” Her accent was Ishgardian: it seemed both Legati had found themselves peregrines to take tonight in lieu of their homelands. Hilda waved him off with both hands and let Næl—taller than her by far, and with an arm draped loose and possessive ‘round her shoulder, hand near cupping the side of one breast—lead her away.

“—I’ve no longer anyone here I’m meant to be the sober party for.”

Alphinaud’s tongue came out to wet those soft lips. “Well, then, I suppose the question left to us is: in which way would you prefer to take advantage of the fact?”

This, Gaius considered. He shifted the hand resting on Alphinaud’s thigh, and watched the resultant shudder and intake of breath. The widening of those pale eyes. “Do you drink?” he asked, fingers slipping between Alphinaud’s spread legs. He gathered up the fabric of Alphinaud’s leggings in his fingertips and let the fitted garment snap back into place.

“On the rare occasion,” said Alphinaud, voice ragged. Clenched those little thighs, catching his fingers between them. “The taste tends to disagree with me.”

“Then shall we take our leave?”

Alphinaud was quiet for a long moment, looking into Gaius’ eyes—or would have done, being sighted. Rather, the eye which better followed sound and movement focused on Gaius’ left cheekbone, and the other remained fixed on a point past his ear. The intention remained clear. “We shall,” said Alphinaud.

Notetaker—clearly made custom, of delicate blue enamel and engraved steel—stowed safely in the interior pocket of a crossbody bag, Alphinaud climbed down from the bar stool, momentarily unsteady from the sudden return of blood flow now legs weren’t pinned against the side of the seat lift. Feet on the ground, the bar counter was now above the little Elezen’s head, and for a moment Gaius worried Alphinaud would not be able to reach the cane still folded up on the counter.

Alphinaud stepped one foot on the lowest rung of the bar stool, one hand clutching to the counter for balance, and got up the few extra ilms to scoop up the cane before hopping back down. The cane was extended in a single movement, clattering and potentially perilous to any unobservant bystanders, and Alphinaud fiddled with the cord and its little carbuncle charm as Gaius paid off Næl’s tab and stood himself.

Fuck, but Alphinaud was tiny—coming up top of head to only Gaius’ waist, and even that in heels. The cane, not even as long as his leg, seemed in comparison to the collection of canes Livia kept on hooks in the front hallway to have been made in miniature, a half-scale model. “I would offer you my elbow,” said Gaius after reacquiring Heirsbane from the coat check, well used to playing the sighted guide and ever terrible at giving directions without visual landmarks to orient them, “but it strikes me that might not be— effective.”

“You needn’t, really,” replied Alphinaud, “but I’d not be averse to taking your hand.”

He looked down to find a blush staining Alphinaud’s cheeks, and offered his hand. Alphinaud’s fingers curled around two of his own. “Step,” he warned, and down they went. Then: “There’s no ætheryte near my house, my work has me leaving at dawn, and I’d rather not strand you in Thanalan to find your way back.” None of this was untrue, as such. But more than that, Gaius would rather not explain himself to Livia—nor, having spoken so candidly already, to Alphinaud. “So we can make to yours, or, well. I’ve a car, of course.” They were nearly to it now.

Alphinaud hummed in consideration. “I’ve never been fucked in a car. I’ve never actually been _in_ a car.”

In Eorzea, _currūs prōpulsī_ was an unnecessary complication when the locals could simply use their native language’s words for their own wagons, and so the loud, foul-smelling ceruleum-propelled vehicles became known soon after the occupation as simply _currūs_ , which their accents twisted into _cars_. Within but a few scant years, the term had wormed its way back into the Garlean vulgar dialect, complete with a flat, nasal ā upon the first syllable and an irregular conjunction.

This was not how Alphinaud had said it. It was quite charming.

“It will be tight,” Gaius warned.

“Yes, generally.”

He opened the door for Alphinaud instead of trying to find a response to that, feeling heat in his face. “This is the back seat,” he explained, “on the passenger side. It’s a bench seat, and the two front seats have a panel between them for gear mechanisms, which you can find at two bells—about half a fulm forward. There you are. You’re like to want your bag on the front passenger seat, directly to the right of the gear shift.”

Alphinaud swung the bag into the seat as directed, and the cane followed once it had been folded up again. Then Alphinaud crawled the rest of the way into the backseat of the car and—after testing and satisfying the fear that pressing against the door might open it—leaned back sprawling against the door to blink up at Gaius, who still stood in the parking lot.

The only light out here came from the bar at his back, and the dim light bathed Alphinaud in a warm glow, playing on pale blue irises, on the glint of teeth biting playful at lower lip, on the white braid fallen over one shoulder. Alphinaud splayed in the backseat of Gaius’ car with right leg outstretched, but the left was bent at the knee, and it swung beside the seat, toes not touching the floor.

Gaius swallowed. “I,” he said, and his throat felt suddenly very dry. He was really doing this. “I obviously don’t know your access needs intimately,” he said instead of the words which had tried to crawl up his throat, _I’ve never seen something so perfect_ , and in the same breath _I want to tear you apart_. “If I have been affording too little information or too much, just tell me.”

Alphinaud waved it away with a careless hand. “You’re _absolutely_ fine, sir,” and the tone—flippant, half-joking, but the word coming so fluidly to Alphinaud’s tongue and sounding so fitting from it—as much as the circumstances brought Gaius to his knees, halfway in the car and the door frame digging into his shin.

The slam of the door, once he had collected all his limbs, resounded in the quiet. Afterward, for a long moment: only breath.

Then, no louder than a whisper: “How would you have me?”

Gaius took in a sharp breath. “Bare,” he said after but a moment’s consideration, “and in as many ways as you’ll allow.”

In Gaius’ lap, Alphinaud looked like a doll left unpainted, plait let loose so bone-white hair fell in curls around the raw porcelain of barely-there breasts, and the dim light coming in from one side played on Alphinaud’s soft features, made cavernous the hollows of his collarbone. Gaius pressed the whole of his hand between Alphinaud's legs—base of his palm curling up past the ridge of Alphinaud’s pelvic bone—and found slippery wetness under his fingers. Alphinaud ground into his hand, fingers tangled in Gaius’ shirt as his little cock met the pressure of his cupped palm. It was barely an ilm long, and so clearly sensitive, Alphinaud whining at the contact.

“How long since you began your transition?” Gaius winced near as soon as it left his mouth sounding like he was chasing, and _my dead lover was transgender_ was a worse mood-killer than _my daughter is blind_.

Alphinaud scoffed. “I,” he began, then thought better of it. Shook his head, brought up a hand to cover Gaius’ mouth, and—fair enough. Gaius parted his lips; sucked three of those slender fingers into his mouth. Alphinaud audibly gasped.

“Finger yourself open with my spit, boy,” he ordered after some time, ducking his head low to catch a kiss, dragging at Alphinaud’s lower lip with his teeth, loving the soft whimper he earned.

Alphinaud gave the tiniest of nods even as he was already reaching behind, the arch of his spine changing the fall of light on his bare breasts, and pressed spit-soaked fingers into his tight ass. Gaius’ fingers, too, were dripping wet, just from pressing flat against Alphinaud’s folds and letting him rub against him. “What’s off-limits?”

“Nothing,” Alphinaud gasped, full of his own fingers and legs shaking with effort and arousal both. “Do—do whatever you like. Hurt me, or, or, or put your fingers in my cunt. Make use of me, sir, however you see fit.”

And, well. There was little to say to that. Half-hard already, Gaius did not reach into his flies. At his age, he was only going to get it up once, and he was more than content to wrench free a few screams first: hoped that for as quiet as Alphinaud was in taking his pleasure, enough work could change that.

He buried his middle finger in the boy’s cunt; could feel the press of Alphinaud’s own fingers as he worked open his ass with only spit to ease the way. Could feel, too, the full-body jerk from the suddenness of the intrusion, nothing at all and then buried to the third knuckle in the span of a breath.

He shifted his hand, bringing it downwards. Pressed the tip of his index finger into the space between Alphinaud’s own to join them, forcing them apart wider, trapping them inside, and pressing in so much deeper. Alphinaud whined all through his inhale, lips drawn back from clenched teeth. The boy’s thighs were bowstrings.

His free hand, Gaius stroked Alphinaud’s back with, first feeling the bumps of each of his vertebræ and the lines of his ribcage, then scraping his nails up unblemished skin to bring up welts.

When the spit on Alphinaud’s fingers no longer sufficed, Gaius removed his own to free them, bringing his hand up between their bodies. The rough fabric of his trousers rubbing up against Alphinaud’s cock made the boy wince, already sensitive _before_ he had come on Gaius’ fingers, spasming but silent.

He pressed his fingers to Alphinaud’s lips, three together as much as the boy’s mouth could take—and take them he did, sucking on Gaius’ fingertips as if they were the head of his cock; taking him—with concentration, and two false starts—to the third knuckle. If the taste of himself bothered Alphinaud, he certainly didn’t show it.

His pupils were blown so wide his eyes glinted black in the light from the bar.

Gaius played with Alphinaud’s curls as the boy blew his fingers. His hair was fine, moreso than Livia’s or Mid’s, and far more than Gaius’ own; Gaius worried he might break it if he pulled on the boy’s hair out of its plait. Figured, as small as Alphinaud was, as small as his mouth was, it was unlikely to be an issue.

Hells, if anything—

“Are you going to be able to take my cock, small as you are?” Gaius asked. “It’s no worry,” he added. “I’ll voice no objection to spending between your thighs.”

Alphinaud pulled off his fingers. With an eye roll and hoarse voice pitched mocking-low, he echoed, “‘Are you going to be able to take my cock?’ Do you truly have such little confidence in me, sir?” This last was in his own register, still hoarse. “Now kindly get those,” he nodded to Gaius’ wet fingers, “inside me.”

Alphinaud was still so tight the answering press of his body around Gaius’ fingers was nearly painful for his old joints. “If we had oil, perhaps this would be a different matter,” Gaius started, because he could barely even part his fingers, and the appropriate solution for misaligned staminas was not to exhaust _both_ parties well before sex could take place, “but—”

Alphinaud, apparently made of two or three parts _stubborn_ to one part _beguiling_ , sighed. Loudly. “You needn’t,” he said firmly, “be so fucking _gentle_. I’ll not _break_.”

Out of some habit long thought broken, Gaius nearly warned, “ _Language_.” He stopped himself with the knowledge that if he did, Alphinaud might not say it again, and it was that selfsame twitch of his cock to blame for Livia’s foul mouth. “I don’t want to clean blood stains out of my car,” he said instead, which was entirely reasonable.

“Eugh,” said Alphinaud. “Here, let me—” His legs were unsteady as he raised himself up off Gaius’ fingers; stood shaking and twisted over the front seat to go searching in his bag. Gaius admired the view.

After a moment, Alphinaud made a successful sort of noise, tore a packet open with his teeth. The metallic strip—strips?—fluttered to the floor of the car, catching on the light. With one hand still in front of him, Alphinaud brought the other back, something wet on his fingers, and pressed all four at once past his already-swollen rim.

“ _Oh_.”

Alphinaud leaned heavily on the front seat for several moments, fucking himself on his fingers, whatever lube he had found in his bag easily slicking the way. And then he twisted again to face Gaius once more, flush high in his cheeks, but rather than climb into his lap he climbed up between the two front seats and—

Eikons be damned, each and every one. Alphinaud had rolled a condom down onto the gear shift while he fingered himself, and now he lowered himself onto it, slow and careful, one hand on the shoulder of the passenger seat and the other between his legs to guide the shaft into his body. His eyes were screwed shut in concentration, and the muffled noises making it past his bitten lips might have been pain, or pleasure, or both.

Gaius’ answering groan certainly felt like both.

The gear shift was not, by any means, a _small_ thing. Not as girthy as Gaius, but several ilms longer, and certainly leather and metal were far more unforgiving than was flesh.

It went in. Alphinaud slipped down the wrapped shaft in arrhythmic, ilm-length stretches, each tearing a squeak from the boy’s throat as if he was shocked at his own success, each getting higher as the thing got deeper inside him. And then, finally, it could go no deeper, and all Alphinaud could do was shudder, impaled on its length.

Sweat dripped from Alphinaud’s hairline; collected beneath the slight swell of his breasts. “There,” he said unsteadily. “You just have to— _go_ for it.”

“I,” said Gaius, at a loss for words. “Ah. Indeed.”

“I _will_ need some. Assistance. Getting off of this, though.” The line of Alphinaud’s lips was straight enough to use for a level. He was looking somewhere to the left, and very floorwards.

Trapped, was he? “You certainly made your point well,” said Gaius, sure to make his amusement plain.

“Thank you. This is—in my colon? I,” and then the boy cut off with a choked gasp.

He did _say_ not to be gentle with him. And impaled on something so much bigger than anything that should be inside him, unable to get off without help—well. It would only be polite, really, to help Alphinaud _get off_ first.

Gaius curled his two fingers where they were pressed inside Alphinaud’s dripping cunt; pressed his thumb against the boy’s cute little cock. Leaned forward, and took one of his nipples between his teeth. Over the boy's shoulder, the cigarette lighter on the front panel of the dashboard caught his eye. Gaius considered it.

He _did_ manage to make Alphinaud scream.

The boy was all slack limbs, fucked-out overstimulation by the time Gaius put his hands under Alphinaud’s armpits—or, well, his good hand and his bad forearm, elbow leveraged against the seat—and pulled him off the gear shift.

The boy had put a second condom aside on the passenger seat. Handy, that. Gaius laid Alphinaud out in the backseat and made good use of it.

Afterwards, regretting the existence of knees, they talked about not much at all, sharing sips of water out of a half-full bottle in the side of Gaius’ door. It tasted stale in the way water sometimes did, but his throat was so dry he didn’t mind.

He buttoned back up his flies. The used condoms were tossed out the window to become someone else’s problem, or more likely, to be ground into the road. Alphinaud pulled back on his leggings and tunic, grabbed up his heels, and crawled into the passenger seat.

“Where am I dropping you off?”

Alphinaud directed him to an address in Revenant’s Toll, an unassuming apartment complex. Allowed him to steal a kiss before sending him off.

“I had fun.” Alphinaud offered a smile, his lips still swollen and hair still loose.

“I’m glad. See you around?”

Alphinaud scoffed a laugh. “Not likely,” he said, as if on impulse. Then, “See you around.” He wiggled his fingers in a wave, then made for the front door of the row house, wall-trailing rather than bothering with his cane. Gaius waited on the street long enough to make sure he got in, then made for home himself.

According to his linkpearl, it was quarter-past a bell when Alphinaud snuck into Krile and Minfilia’s flat, more glad than he’d like to admit that it was on the ground floor. He reeked of sex. He hadn’t done any of his homework.

At this point, it was far too late to fix both of those things.

He left his bookbag on the sofa, washed his clothes in the bathroom sink, and hung them to dry, and if he nearly fell asleep in the shower, nobody but him needed to know.

Krile kept a few changes of clothes in her room for whichever of the twins was crashing at her place, had done for years now, so he wouldn’t have to go back home in the morning to get lectured by Master Matoya; if he was _very_ lucky, by the next afternoon she’d have forgotten he hadn’t been home tonight.

And Alisaie… Alisaie was a problem for future Alphinaud. An Alphinaud who’d gotten at least three and a half bells rest, and had more caffeine than strictly healthy.

He threw on a pair of pyjamas from the clothes basket, and pulled the throw blanket draped over the back of the sofa over his head.

Livia was in the kitchen when Gaius made it out of the bedroom, her hair damp and feet leaving tiny footprint-puddles on the wood. Gaius came up behind her at the counter, curling his fingers around her hips, slipping underneath the loose waistband of the boxer shorts she must have stolen off the bedroom floor. They were the only thing she had on. He kissed her temple.

“I missed you last night,” said Livia, her tone suggesting she was trying for stern. Her voice held only ardor. “Coffee?”

“Please.” The word came out as if a death rattle, Gaius’ throat was so parched.

Livia reached for a second mug, and poured both, testing the height of the liquid by hooking her finger inside the rim.

“We have a liquid level,” said Gaius, “ _specifically_ so you don’t do that.”

She twisted in his grip, hooking her elbows over his shoulders, her breasts pressed to his chest through his shirt. She tilted back her head, her remaining eye—cornea so heavily scarred it was good for little but light—blinking up at him through her lashes. As if Gaius hadn’t spoken, or his worry for a girl who could feel no pain was in any way unwarranted, Livia just went on, “Were they as good as me?”

Gaius raised a hand to her cheek, ran his thumb across the scarred mess of her empty eye socket, brushed back her hair from her face. “He was as _obstinate_ as you, to be sure,” he said, and tweaked her nose.

“ _Daddy_ ,” Livia whined, burying her laughter into his shoulder. Pulled away, reaching for her mug. “I… should finish getting ready.”

“You should.” He was already in his uniform. Exhausted, but in his uniform. He eyed the horizon, a line of pink quick-forming beneath the starscape, and took the second mug.

“Krile! You’ve got company!” Something touched Alphinaud’s shoulder. “Which one are you? I’ve got tea.”

Alphinaud groaned, opening his eyes and immediately regretting it. Who’d put _lights_ on? He forced himself upright on the sofa and pressed his thumbs into his eyelids. “What?”

“You may not know this,” said—someone. Minfilia, probably: one of Krile’s housemates, and her best friend from childhood. “But identical twins can’t be visually distinguished.”

It was most certainly Minfilia. Tataru was from Ul’dah, and—to Alphinaud’s knowledge—could not speak Sharlayan. Neither would she be so quick to make that joke, having only known the Leveilleurs for a year, and Krile hardly four months.

Alphinaud twisted one hand to press fingertips into his other eye, freeing up his other hand to make a rude gesture, then grab for the tea. “Alphinaud,” he said. “Could I have my bag, if you don’t mind?”

Minfilia handed it over, and he rooted around inside for sunglasses. Put them on, eyes still closed, and drank his tea. It didn’t make him feel any better. “Eyes were a mistake,” he muttered, and forced himself up. Gods, but he didn’t want to go to school. “Eugh. Where did my _cane_ go?”

It should have been in his bag. It _had_ been in his bag, at least before—

Twelve damn it all. _“Krile!”_

There was a tired exhale from the bathroom. Not the tiredness of six bells and no caffeine, but a tiredness that was all _why is this still my problem?_ Muffled: “Yes, Al’?”

“I made a mistake.”

“You often do,” Krile acknowledged. She had known him since he and Alisaie were toddling, and had more blackmail material than he was wholly comfortable thinking about.

“You have a telescopic cane you don’t use, haven’t you? Might I borrow it?”

There was dead silence for a long moment, and then Krile walked into the living room, placing her mug of tea heavy on the side table.

Alphinaud stole a sip.

“…should I ask why?”

“I—perhaps. _Might_ have. Left mine. In a stranger’s car?”

Krile perfunctorily retrieved the mug from Alphinaud’s hands. “A _car_.” From the kitchen, Minfilia coughed.

“He’s a Garlean,” explained Alphinaud.

“You,” Krile started, then stopped. “You had sex with some anonymous Garlean, and left your cane in his car?”

He could feel blush burning to the tips of his ears. “Who said anything about sex?”

Silence.

Fair enough.

When Gaius saw the cane, his first thought was _fuck_.

It was tiny and familiar, wedged half beneath the passenger seat and having caught his eye entirely by chance. Having just dropped Livia at the stop for the train into Castrum Centri, for a moment he thought she had forgotten hers, despite her having sat with it only half-folded between her legs and Gaius chastizing her but minutes before for smacking the hood of the car with it to catch his attention for a parting _I love you._

Of course it wasn’t Livia’s. That would have been too easy. _Livia_ he could contact on linkpearl.

Small as it was, it fit neatly in the pocket of Gaius’ jacket, so he brought it up with him to his office in the Prætorium for lack of any better idea of what to do, and the ensuing five bells of consideration amid mindless paperwork failed to bring one to surface.

He remembered where he had dropped Alphinaud off, inasmuch as he remembered roughly that it was in Revenant’s Toll and poorly lit: Alphinaud had told Gaius to read off street signs and given him directions based upon what he said, so he had no record of a trip in any geopositioning system to use, nor an address to recall. And it had been some sort of apartment complex, not a single-family home. Even if he could find it, what was he meant to do? Leave the cane at the building stoop?

His other option, and likely just as futile, was to send it with Livia to work tomorrow and hope that he received services there, or that someone might recognize a description. Alphinaud was certainly _distinctive_ —but he also had a custom-made braille notetaker and perfectly lovely technique with his cane, which whittled down the services Lighthouse could reasonably provide. And the boy wouldn’t go in to the Lighthouse to purchase a replacement: at his height, all they _might_ have which would suffice would be baby’s first white cane for a Hyur or Miqo’te, and the grip on children’s canes was… certainly something.

No, any replacement would be custom-ordered, as this one surely was. He pulled it out of his pocket, turning it over in his hands.

The reflective tape on the cane body was dirty and battered, exposing in places the carbon fibre, and the lowest section wasn’t the solid red Gaius was accustomed to, nor less common green or candy-striping: only the same white, though rather dirtier than the rest of it. The tip was made of rounded ceramic, worn down enough it had a flat edge. On the grip strap was a faded charm roughly three ilms by one and a half, of a wholly unfamiliar type of bushy-tailed carbuncle. The ink was nearly all rubbed off, leaving the details mostly only distinguishable by the upraised line-art catching the light at an angle.

—wait.

Gaius flipped over the carbuncle charm. 

⠁⠙⠭⠈⠋⠎⠀⠙⠐⠉⠈⠋⠬⠒⠙  
⣷⠬⣐⡲⢂⠄⡢⠀⡳⢨⠧⣬⠀⣂⠀⡆  
⡵⢞⠠⡶⠀⢒⠠⡢⢢⠆⠀⣷⡾⣉⢇⡮⢤

Oh, _fantastic_. If Gaius was lucky, that braille would be contact information. If he was _very_ lucky, it might even be up-to-date.

Gaius van Bælsar ran the side of his right hand ring fingertip—the pads of all on both hands by this point insensate, as many times as they’d been badly burned—across the braille text, and for a solid twenty seconds sincerely thought that he was having a stroke.

He had learned Unified Imperial Braille alongside Livia when she was young, because in those days, student’s braillers didn’t have speakers in them to tell you if you had misspelled something—not even the ones of Garlean make. Twenty years later, Gaius might not have been reading literature essays every evening, but he was far from out of practice.

The first line of the braille on the carbuncle charm read “adxfulms dcastrumfulming:d” in UIB, and in grade 1 made even less sense.

 _adxfulms. 14x fulms_ , perhaps, without a number sign? 14(10)? Not that any amount of theorizing made the second word make any better sense.

Then Gaius tried to read the next line, and near instantly gave himself a headache. The _very first cell_ was all-4+78. All-4 was a standard UIB contraction, “of”, but an eight-dot cell? _What?_

He— fuck. He was going to go get something to eat.

After a light lunch and a large mug of black coffee, Gaius pulled out from his bookshelf a thick guidebook to the braille code, put on his desk lamp and reading glasses, and peered at the table of contents. He didn’t need UIB, nor grades 1 or 2, Nemeth, or the music code. Where was—ah. There. He knew it was somewhere in here.

There were two code guidelines for eight-dot braille in use in the Empire: one for scientific annotation, and one for nine-keyed notetakers, which abbreviated capitalization, numerals, and diacritics to a single cell. Gaius flipped to the latter, and in a notebook began the painstaking process of writing out the label’s transliteration.

adx"fs d-c"f⌂c:d  
█⌂■♬¼,▼ ↑Kv◼ î ←  
Z⌠~↔ ‖,▼┐; █▌⊦∞@¡

Gaius rubbed his eyes. That… that _couldn’t_ be right. Maybe he was—reading it upside down?

He flipped it over and repeated the process.

hW⫤⊦[⛆ ;29,u },Z⌠  
$ 3 G«Bα 9¦1`m→⛆  
ç-→▐ Ç,ç ♥▐ Üçá

…Never mind.

Well, that had been a wasted two bells. Why hadn’t he asked after any way to _contact_ the boy? Alphinaud was clever, and stubborn, and Gaius was self-aware enough to know precisely his type in both appearance and personality, young and slight and pale and so _very_ bold. He was stuck yet on Alphinaud’s carefully mild acknowledgement of how his family had fled their home in New Sharlayan amid Garlemald’s conquest, only a quirked eyebrow giving away that it was some brand of test (and if he had _passed_ , Gaius did not know).

Oh, he was a fool, wasn’t he?

There were few aspects of Garlean rule in Eorzea Gaius van Bælsar could not find fault in. So much of Garlemald’s expansion had been atrocity-won, and so many of the policies he wrestled with favored not simply Garlean citizens (which Gaius found quite reasonable), but members of the native race, what some called pureblooded Garleans. Personally, Gaius thought recreating the caste system under which they had so chafed in reverse was hardly _wise_ or _useful_.

But, of course, for all his criticisms, Gaius would also be the first to acknowledge how greatly improved Eorzea was now, even in only the space of two generations, and Castrum Centri School for the Blind and Visually Impaired stood a foremost example of the gains.

Before it had been folded into the Empire, there was no centralized education for the blind in Eorzea, and braille literacy was so low it may as well have been non-existant. In the near fifty years since CCSBVI’s founding, hundreds of disabled Eorzean children had received a free education, regardless of their race. Thanks to a grant from a vintner with a personal stake in the issue, it had even begun only one summer past to partner with a local university to support students who wished to access higher education—the first institution of its sort to do so.

Gaius didn’t often find himself at the school, these days: Livia had graduated some twelve years ago, now, and while as an O&M instructor she was often at CCSBVI and worked the rest of the time at the Lighthouse, which was only next door, he only rarely even had occasion to drop her at the entrance. Still, he was recognized and welcomed at the front desk.

“Legatus! Are you looking for Miss Junius, or Mr. Scæva?”

Gaius van Bælsar hated Nero Scæva. This was 85% because of Nero’s unfortunate personality, and 15% because, thanks to his unfortunate personality, he hadn’t yet married Cid.

“Scæva,” Gaius said, offering the receptionist a smile.

“All right! Well, I don’t believe he’s teaching right now, so you can head right back to his office, if you’d like.”

Gaius nodded his thanks and made his way back. Nero had, in addition to his quite lucrative magiteknical engineering career, been teaching physics and shop at CCSBVI since he was little more than a teen himself, and irritating as he was, there were two distinct advantages to dropping by unannounced at _his_ office. Firstly, Nero was pointedly, intentionally illiterate, which everyone hated, and that meant if anyone had some sort of tool on hand which could transcribe what must be Sharlayan braille, or even give him somewhere to _start_ , it would be Nero. Secondly, by Livia’s account, Cid—who had cut off all contact with Gaius when he was in his mid-twenties—often appeared there likewise unannounced.

He knocked at the closed office door. “Nero!”

Inside, some shuffling, and then the door swung open.

“Oh,” said Nero. “Fancy seeing you here!”

Someone further inside the office scoffed a laugh at the joke, seemingly more out of habit than real amusement.

“Right,” said Nero, still blocking the doorway. He waved towards Gaius. “Gaius van Bælsar. And—a Leveilleur. Which Leveilleur, I do not know. I would apologize,” he added to the student inside, the door swinging further open with his turn, “but that would imply I was sorry.”

“Ah,” came the quiet, discomfited reply from the student. “We’re acquainted, in fact.”

“Alphinaud,” said Gaius, as evenly as he could manage. “Exactly who I hoped to find, in fact. You left your cane in my car.”

“I did. We should—talk.” The boy’s blush burned pink across his cheeks.

Nero, standing between the two of them, went, “Huh,” and then, a moment later, “ _Oh,_ ” and Gaius hated himself for how _predictable_ he was.

The first thing out of Alphinaud’s mouth once they’d extracted themselves from Mr. Scæva’s office was, “I’m eighteen.” It was—nearly, almost, soon to be not untrue.

(Alphinaud _reviled_ Imperial age of majority laws. In Sharlayan, the age of majority was sixteen and applied to alcohol, sex, and civil engagement, but in the Garlean Empire he was entirely barred from voting as citizenship was available only through military service, and he’d had to get a fake ID to even _sit in a bar_. Mr. Scæva’s husband(?) had made Alphinaud his, along with nearly every other senior at CCSBVI: “you’ll get them anyway,” he’d argued, “and this way I know they’ll be quality and you won’t be using them to try and pass a driver’s exam.” _ALPHINAUD aan LEVEILLEUR,_ the ID read, with the Garlean naming convention and that so-odd transliteration of his name they all used here, _BIRTH 4 S 12UM 1559 6AE. TYPE DISABLED V2A._ That last meant, according to Mr. Garlond, that he was visually impaired and could not walk 50 meters without the assistance of a cane, service animal, or sighted guide. It was one of the two ID designations that barred you from a license, the other being epileptic.)

“I don’t care,” said Gaius van Bælsar. “I _should_ , but I don’t.”

“Oh.” Alphinaud wasn’t sure what response he’d expected, but he knew for certain it wasn’t that. “I.” He blinked. “Thank you, again, for returning my cane. I’m not sure how you—?” It was labelled, of course, but it wasn’t in _Garlean_. He’d not bothered to get a new one yet because nonsense braille was as good an indicator you’d picked up the wrong cane as anything readable would have been. And he loved his Moonstone charm.

“Dumb luck.”

Alphinaud nodded. He felt off-kilter, still. Twisted his cane in his grip, thankful for the familiar weight rather than Krile’s backup telescopic, now buried in his bag. And then, well. This was foolish, probably, but… “If you don’t care,” said Alphinaud, “then do you want my number?”

**Author's Note:**

> fun facts with avia ondine patrexes  
> \- everything the lorebook says about næl van darnus can get fucked  
> \- did y’all know tonic water is just straight up malaria medication? it also glows in the dark apparently  
> \- “orientation & mobility” is what How To Get Around class is called when you’re b/vi. here it’s also multiple puns  
> \- all the canes types, o&m techniques, assistive technologies, braille codes, &c, written about herein are 100% Actual Fax Real Things and by god do i have opinions about them all  
> \- the nfb has hot takes about white canes with red striped bottoms and think you shouldn’t use them. i want to explicitly clarify alphinaud’s cane body is 100% white NOT because i agree with them but because i didn’t feel like he’d do a fancy custom cane but he has a color palette and red would Clash  
> \- unified imperial braille is called “ueb” in real life and the e stands for english (and some of the contractions are different because uhh xiv worldbuilding). ueb more or less replaced grade-2 eng braille for which we are all extremely thankful. gs8 and bcn, the latin-alphabet 8-dot codes in use (gs8 = maths, bcn = computers), should theoretically be great but in practice are the bane of my fucking existence. @bana please just pick something already orz  
> \- meanwhile, sharlayan braille is (kan)tenji !! the 6-dot tenji is much more common irl but 8-dot kantenji seemed like some shit sharlayan would do. the former codes kana, the latter kanji. i can read the former and had to beg help off a sighted person who knows hànzì to deal with the latter but hey what’s fanfic for if not…learning kind of obscure braille codes? y e a h  
> \- in the actual correct braille code, alphinaud’s label reads アルフィノ・ルヴェユール / 見つかった場合はに戻ってください盲学校。


End file.
